Power-drunk homophobic Christer Bob Vander Plaats finds out he can't bully a $36 billion corporation

In less than a week the Iowa Family Leader's Bob Vander Plaats has careened off two targets whose willingness to capitulate to his intimidation he seriously misjudged.
     First, it was shifty Iowa GOP Governor Terry Branstad, who finally had to say something about the Iowa Governor's Conference on LGBTQ Youth that he won't be attending because of a "scheduling conflict" and from which he was accused of having underlings try to remove his office's name.
     After finding out that ducking questions about the machinations didn't make the issue disappear, Branstad finally told reporters he won't try to have the word "Governor" removed from the anti-gay bullying confab, saying (when backed into a corner) “I believe in treating everybody with respect and dignity and certainly we want to make sure that nobody is bullied.”
      Which caused Vander Plaats to fling blocks from his personal stash of refrigerator magnet phrases in the following order: “Governor Branstad needs to be held accountable for his support of this conference and the promotion of a very radical and dangerous left-wing agenda,”
     Which caused to Branstad to chuckle publicly at a news conference at Vander Plaats' remarks.
     No matter. The voices in Vander Plaats' head just regrouped and decided to go after a new target, Starbucks, after the company joined Microsoft and Nike and 97 other top Washington State companies in supporting marriage equality there.
      Specifically, Vander Plaats made a video trashing Starbucks' with invented quotations employing more of his refrigerator magnet phrases. Not only did these not stick either, but Starbucks apparently got mad and its lawyers got even, resulting in Vander Plaats quickly removing his YouTube attack video.
     Clearly, Vander Plaats is in way over his head waging a war of ideological extortion on a deep-pocketed organization evidently willing to call him — and the Iowa Family Leader — on their lies, to the point of offering to see one or both of them in court.

_________________________
* “God’s design of marriage is bad for families.”
   “Homosexual marriage is core to who they are.”

Red state update: Dunlap knows exactly why Newt Gingrich lost Florida

Hip Hop site posts Atlanta gang gay bashing / hate crime

The Atlanta Police Department released the following statement:

The Atlanta Police Department is working to determine more about the attack depicted on this video, including attempting to identify the victim and the perpetrators. We are also working to determine if the victim filed a police report, or if police were called to the scene. We have engaged investigators and officers in Zone 3 — where the incident apepars to have taken place — the Gangs Unit and the Homeland Security Unit, which investigates bias crimes. Our LGBT liaisons have also been made aware of the video. We encourage the victim to come forward to discuss the incident with investigators. If anyone else has information about this video, or can identify the victim and/or perpetrators, we encourage them to call Atlanta Police in Zone 3 at 404-624-0674 or Crime Stoppers Atlanta at 404-577-TIPS (8477)."

Carlos Campos

Public Affairs Manager

Atlanta Police Department

226 Peachtree St., SW

Atlanta, GA 30303

The Super Bowl ad you didn't see, unless you live in the middle of Nebraska — Will Ferrell for Old Milwaukee

Unlike the hugely popular Ferris Beuller Honda ad conceived by Omaha native Ariel Shukert, the Old Milwaukee Super Bowl ad was seen in only one market in the world (if you believe deadspin) — North Platte, Nebraska, hometown of the New England Patriots' midget running back, 5'8" Danny Woodhead, who is, according to the New York Times, possibly 200 lbs.

National Organization for Marriage still repeating the lie about gay adoption in Massachussetts

We've seen what happens in Massachusetts, where Catholic Charities Adoption Agency after passage of same-sex marriage is told that it's discriminating because it can only adopt children of same-sex couples according to its religious beliefs. The state comes in and says "Now, because of same-sex marriage, that is discrimination, you can no longer adopt children at all."

Here we see Brown cynically pandering to the phony Christers-Are-Victims mantra by falsely stating (in link, skip to Reality: Catholic Charities Chose To Stop Receiving Public Funding For Adoption Services) that Catholic Charities in Massachusetts was forced by the government to close its adoption agency when in fact it decided to do so after the state told the agency it could no longer violate law by discriminating against otherwise qualified gay couples with taxpayers' dollars. And this had nothing to do with gay marriage laws, but public accommodation laws covering gay people.

The Mormon Church continues to run its adoption agency in the Bay State, choosing to forgo tax subsidies in order to continue to discriminate against same sex couples, a fact which which irrefutably busts Brown's shameless and stubborn fabrication.

Heineman, Unicameral collude to create another secret corporate tax giveaway; Nebraskans won't know who boutique legislation is for until after it passes; Large tax subsidy for creation of as few as 30 jobs

It's called Project Edge, and is a replay of the way that Utah-based Micron jerked the Unicameral's chain in 1995, before deciding not to move to Nebraska.
     Two legislative bills are involved.

• LB1118 would kick in when a corporation spends $300 million on a data center and employs as few as 30 people, at which point the firm would get refunds on sales and use taxes, property tax exemptions, and refunds on personal property tax exemptions like office machines and software. Supporters say the tax benefits to the state would be on sales taxes on the discounted electricity (see next bill) and all that income tax paid by [as few as] 30 employees!
• LB1043, which allows "economic incentive" public power district rates for data centers. Supporters claim that (somehow) other electrical customers won't end up subsidizing the incentives.

Gov. Dave Heineman is participating in the recruitment/tax giveaway incentive, as is State Sen. Abbie Cornett of Bellevue, who introduced LB1118, even though the OPPD area has already been rejected as a possible site, and even though Kearney, expected to benefit from the proposed data center, has an unemployment rate of just 3%.
     TransCanada pet and term limits lame duck Sen. Chris Langemeier of Schuyler, who introduced LB1043, urged colleagues on the Natural Resources Committee to advance his bill benefiting the corporation whose name he won't disclose to his constituents.
     The Omaha World-Herald, in an article by Paul Hammel and Joe Duggan noted:

York Sen. Greg Adams.Adams noted that despite lucrative tax breaks, the data center is projected to pay more in state taxes than it gets in credits during the first three years — almost $50 million more.

     After that, the company could claim its first refund on sales and use taxes, projected to be $21 million. By 2017-18 through 2025-26, the state would be providing about $3 million a year in tax credits, according to a legislative fiscal note.

What Hammel and Duggan did not note was the personal property tax exemptions for contractors on the project. which presumably would apply to companies like Keiwit Construction, not that it would ever bid on such a project...

M.I.A. flips bird at Superbowl; NBC, NFL flip out, point index fingers at each other

An uplifted middle finger at 8:03 by M.I.A. during Madonna's Superbowl halftime show last night has caused finger-pointing by the NFL at NBC.
     Late Sunday night, both NBC and the National Football League issued dueling statements. NBC called it a "spontaneous gesture." The NFL called it a "failure in NBC's delay system."
     More he said / she said:

NBC: "Inappropriate"
NFL: "Obscene"
NBC: "The NFL hired the talent and produced the halftime show"

     The National Football League, which hides the consequences of violence in its product by snipping footage of players who are seriously injured during its games, also imposes a North Korea-like curtain around sexual innuendo, and not just because of government regulations imposed on telecasts.
     In 2005, the NFL refused to allow director Ang Lee use footage of an NFL game on a television set in the background of family Thanksgiving Day dinner scene in Brokeback Mountain (CFL footage was used instead.)

George Clooney pays Omaha director Alexander Payne a very backhanded compliment

He's just one of the great... You know he's five for five. He's done five films: Citizen Ruth, Election, you know, About Schmidt, Sideways, [and The Descendants]... I mean, you know...F*CK HIM!

Complete text of lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court on behalf of Steven Ondo and Jonathan Simcox, allegedly brutalized and taken to jail in their underwear by homophobic Cleveland, OH cops

To enlarge the document below, click the icon closest to "Scribd" at the bottom.
Ondo-Simcox US District Court Complaint

Who made Honda's Ferris Bueller Super Bowl ad? LA's Rubin Postaer & Associates, where idea was conceived by 27-year-old Omaha native

Omaha World-Herald columnist Michael Kelly reveals that Honda's Super Bowl ad was conceived by Omaha native Ariel Shukert, 27, an art director, and her 32-year-old partner, copywriter David Sullivan, 32, and filmed over four days the week before Christmas in Beverly Hills, the Santa Monica Pier, Hollywood Park racetrack, the Natural History Museum and Chinatown.

Shukert said Broderick told her he has fond memories of her hometown, where he filmed Alexander Payne's Election, released in 1999.

Bill Maher unbaptizes Romney's dead father-in-law: 'By the power granted to me by the Blair Witch... I call upon the Mormon Spirits to leave your body the f*ck alone'

There is a growing trend in this country that needs to be called out. And that is to label any evidence-based belief a religion. Many conservatives now say that belief in man-made climate change is a religion. And Darwinism is a religion. And of course, atheism, the total lack of a religion is somehow a religion too, according to the always-reliable Encyclopedia Moronica.

     It's not fair that people who can't defend their own nonsense get to create a fake "fair and balanced argument" the way they do when asserting that evolution and creationism are equally valid. I'm not saying that atheists are perfect thinkers. Everyone has blind spots. I'm sure there are atheists who think pony tails look good on a man... But when it comes to religion, we're not two sides of the same coin and you don't get to put your unreason up on the same shelf with my reason...

     I'm open to anything for which there's evidence. Show me a god and I will believe in him. If Jesus Christ comes down from the sky during the halftime show of this Sunday's Superbowl and turns all the nachos into loaves...I'll think two things: First, how dare he interrupt Madonna, she is gonna be PISSED, and Two: Oh, look at that, I was wrong. There he is! My bad, praise the lord!

     If you still insist atheism is still a religion, then it's only fair that we get to do all the loony stuff that you get to do. And I'm going to start, tonight, by unbaptising Mitt Romney's dead father-in-law. By the power granted to me by the Blair Witch... e pluribus mumbo jumbo... yo yo mama... I call upon the Mormon Spirits to leave your body the f*ck alone. Brother Edward, in this world, you had to put up with Mitt Romney, you've suffered enough.

Closed-circuit footage confirms account of 30-year-old British man going over balcony railing on gay cruise

From his stateroom, a guest saw the man fall at 7:10 AM EST on Friday while the 5,400-passenger ship, Allure of the Seas, one of the largest in the world, was en route from Ft. Lauderdale, FL to Cozumel, Mexico. The Royal Caribbean liner was chartered by Atlantis Events, which organizes gay cruises.

Musicals: who dubbed whom?

(Source)

Gay Director George Cukor to Jack Lemmon: 'Could you give me less, darling?'

​Village Voice's Michael Musto just blogged a post on Jack Lemmon's son's one-man show "A Twist of Lemmon" and reminded AKSARBENT of another, shall we say, overly-emotive actor, James Cagney, who did not acquit himself well on screen until five years before he died, in a terrific performance in 1981's Ragtime, by which time Cagney had become an octogenarian diabetic and had calmed down considerably.
     Lemmon's Ragtime was, of course, Save the Tiger, in which he turned in a fine performance, not overacting a bit, and was rewarded for his efforts by a Best Actor Oscar.
     Musto's piece recalled the following Chris Lemmon anecdote explaining how director Cukor handled the senior Lemmon's scenery-chewing:

The flaming George Cukor directed Jack in his first film, It Should Happen to You (1954), and after one energetic take of a scene, he said to the actor:

"Oh, gosh, Jackie, look at you go! It's really ducky, isn't it?

"But could you give me less, darling?"

Jack did less, but it wasn't enough for Cukor, who wanted even less.

This went on for a bunch more takes, after which Jack exasperatedly said, "If I gave you any less, I wouldn't be acting."

Replied Cukor, "Exactly!"

Family Research Council and Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute caught stoking ugly smear that is hurting Girl Scouts Cookie sales

Today, Right Wing Watch, a project of People for the American Way, reported on a nasty two-year-old campaign against the Girl Scouts of America started by the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, whose president, Austin Ruse, is married to Cathy Ruse, an employee of the Family Research Council, which, as of today, is still repeating the lie that girl scouts distributed graphic sex education materials, fueling its spread on social media sites and in chain emails.


The rumor dates to March of 2010 and has been thoroughly debunked by the Girl Scouts, but both the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute and the Family Research Council are hanging on to the smear like junkyard dogs, so eager are they to establish links, no matter how false, between their boogie woman, Planned Parenthood, and other organizations, even if doing do defunds valuable programs for Girl Scouts all across America.

Family Research Council's Cathy Ruse
smeared Girl Scouts with baseless lie

The Family Research Council even referenced an Idaho television news report about the fake controversy FRC ginned up, without specifically identifying it so that their followers could watch  — which would have busted their lie. (The video is no longer available on the Internet.
     It was neat trick: first the FRC promoted a toxic rumor, then  "reported" on legitimate news accounts of the rumor's damage, while concealing the source and the full account to avoid having its ruse exposed. (Here is the two-year-old smear, renewed again today on the FRC's website (the embedded link busting the FRC's phony accusation was added by AKSARBENT):

It looks like liberals finally got caught with their hands in the cookie jar! After people like FRC's Cathy Ruse started exposing the connection between the Girl Scouts and Planned Parenthood, more customers are pulling their support from the annual fundraiser. One news outlet in Idaho, says more than 200 people have complained, bringing cookie sales to one of their lowest points. Shelli Rambo Roberson, the CEO of the local Council, claims there's no partnership. It's just a "rumor," she told reporters. 

     Not so, says Cathy, who has plenty of documentation from a special U.N. "Girls Only" workshop co-hosted by Planned Parenthood and the Girl Scouts. The workshop included a graphic sex manual called "Healthy, Happy, and Hot," full of ideas too pornographic to repeat. It's part of a joint project to bring "better sexual health" to girls as young as 10. And while some troop leaders are committed to raising women of integrity, we can't turn a blind eye to the Girl Scout headquarters, which is bombarding girls with topics like abortion, contraception, and homosexuality.

Nancy Brinker, founder of the Susan G. Komen Foundation, tries to spin Andrea Mitchell; Brinker's antiabortion, homophobic vice president, Karen Handel

David Badash, of The New Civil Rights Movement, unearths video evidence of the contempt displayed by Susan G. Komen Foundation vice-president Karen Handel for gay couples well before Nancy Brinker hired her. The second video shows Brinker trying to wriggle out from under Andrea Mitchell's questions.

Q: You have said that you are — you’re against gay marriage, right?

A: Mm hm. Absolutely. Marriage is between one man and one woman. And I’ve been very very clear about that. And the record is clear about any of the other issues like domestic partner benefits or anything like that. In fact in Fulton, I voted no on domestic partner benefits.

Q: Are you against civil unions for gays?

A: Yes. I think that’s not an issue that has come forward in Georgia. We have the constitutional amendment against gay marriage, and I don’t want to see any taxpayer funding going toward benefits etcetera for a couple that is not married. In our state and for me, marriage is for one man and one woman.

Q: Why is that?

A: Why is marriage between one man and one woman? (Laughs). Are you serious?

Q: Yes. Well why — do you view committed gay relationships as being less legitimate than committed heterosexual relationships?

A: As a Christian, I view relationships and marriage as being between a man and a woman.

Q: But what about the legitimacy of the relationship? Do you have any gay friends? Do you know gay couples?

A: Of course I do. Are we going to spend our whole day talking on this issue?

Q: So you think gay couples are less qualified to function as parents than straight couples?

A: I think that for a child to be in a household — in a family in a household with a situation where the parents are not married, as in one man and one woman, is not the best household for a child.

Q: Is it better or worse than a single parent household?

A: Doug, I’m really trying to be straightforward with you but I’m not going to debate all the nuances. I’ve made it abundantly clear that I think that marriage is between a man and a woman. And that’s what I believe, and I don’t know what more you would like me to add to that.

Q: I guess I want to know why you think gay parents aren’t as legitimate as heterosexual parents.

A: Because I don’t.

An important development in the cute-boys-with-cats meme

On October 25th, AKSARBENT took note of the website Cute Boys With Cats; now there's another, Boys With Beards With Cats; to the left is one of the 30 most adorable pictures on that site, as adjudicated by Buzzfeed, the judgement of which, based on the site's traffic, must be impeccable.

Staggering Facebook size revealed in filing for $5b May IPO; $1B profit on $3.7B in sales; 2.7 billion "likes" and coments per day; 100,000 trillion bytes of shared photos and videos

• According to the prospectus it filed with the SEC, Facebook has been profitable for three years
• Profit on revenues of $3.7 billion last year was $1 billion, an 88 percent increase over the prior year, and more than Google's total revenue the year it went public
• Advertising makes up 85% revenue, down from 98 percent in 2009
• Facebook has 845 million members, more than half of whom return to the site daily.
• The company reached a 60 percent penetration in the U.S. and U.K. and expects expansion to slow
• Users could also be wooed away by the very features the social network introduced: apps that run on Facebook "may result in users increasingly engaging with our Platform developers' Facebook-integrated websites instead of engaging on Facebook, which may negatively affect our advertising revenue and harm our business."
• Founder Zuckerberg owns 28 percent of the company (but controls 57% of the voting shares) which could be worth $28 billion following the IPO

This not-so-implausible Onion parody is why we at AKSARBENT don't use facebook:

Pissed off French woman shows glitter-bombing faguette Americans what a real protest is all about

(Via JMG)

French Socialist candidate Francoise Hollande got flour-bombed by a rent-is-too-damned-high woman just before a speech on housing, which he delivered after being dusted off.
     Opinion polls released Tuesday showed Hollande widening a lead over French President Sarkozy.
     Unlike glitter-bombed US politicians, Hollande is an LGBT ally who has promised to legalize gay marriage and adoption for same-sex couples.

A nice letter from an ex-slave telling his Tennessee master to go to hell

The worst teacher of AKSARBENT's public school sentence was an outstandingly ignorant and racist swim coach at Lincoln Southeast High School who, doubtless, was a member in good standing of the Nebraska State Education Association. He confidently told his bored charges that few slaves were mistreated because, after all, they were an investment to their owners. Said coach's preparation for the history class he babysat was so minimal that his lectures consisted of reading from the textbook aloud. While doing so, he would pronounce "Czar" as "Caesar."
     AKSARBENT doubts that he ever would have willingly read the following letter from an ex-slave, published by the New York Daily Tribune in 1865, which is why we hope he had to transcribe the missive 100,000 times on the blackboard in purgatory.
     Or hell. Whatever.

Dayton, Ohio, August 7, 1865

To My Old Master, Colonel P.H. Anderson, Big Spring, Tennessee

Sir:

I got your letter, and was glad to find that you had not forgotten Jourdon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this, for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Colonel Martin's to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable. Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again, and see Miss Mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville Hospital, but one of the neighbors told me that Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance.

I want to know particularly what the good chance is you propose to give me. I am doing tolerably well here. I get twenty-five dollars a month, with victuals and clothing; have a comfortable home for Mandy,—the folks call her Mrs. Anderson,—and the children—Milly, Jane, and Grundy—go to school and are learning well. The teacher says Grundy has a head for a preacher. They go to Sunday school, and Mandy and me attend church regularly. We are kindly treated. Sometimes we overhear others saying, "Them colored people were slaves" down in Tennessee. The children feel hurt when they hear such remarks; but I tell them it was no disgrace in Tennessee to belong to Colonel Anderson. Many darkeys would have been proud, as I used to be, to call you master. Now if you will write and say what wages you will give me, I will be better able to decide whether it would be to my advantage to move back again.

As to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained on that score, as I got my free papers in 1864 from the Provost-Marshal-General of the Department of Nashville. Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you were disposed to treat us justly and kindly; and we have concluded to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for the time we served you. This will make us forget and forgive old scores, and rely on your justice and friendship in the future. I served you faithfully for thirty-two years, and Mandy twenty years. At twenty-five dollars a month for me, and two dollars a week for Mandy, our earnings would amount to eleven thousand six hundred and eighty dollars. Add to this the interest for the time our wages have been kept back, and deduct what you paid for our clothing, and three doctor's visits to me, and pulling a tooth for Mandy, and the balance will show what we are in justice entitled to.

Please send the money by Adams's Express, in care of V. Winters, Esq., Dayton, Ohio. If you fail to pay us for faithful labors in the past, we can have little faith in your promises in the future. We trust the good Maker has opened your eyes to the wrongs which you and your fathers have done to me and my fathers, in making us toil for you for generations without recompense. Here I draw my wages every Saturday night; but in Tennessee there was never any pay-day for the negroes any more than for the horses and cows. Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who defraud the laborer of his hire.

In answering this letter, please state if there would be any safety for my Milly and Jane, who are now grown up, and both good-looking girls. You know how it was with poor Matilda and Catherine. I would rather stay here and starve—and die, if it come to that—than have my girls brought to shame by the violence and wickedness of their young masters. You will also please state if there has been any schools opened for the colored children in your neighborhood. The great desire of my life now is to give my children an education, and have them form virtuous habits.

Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me.

From your old servant,
Jourdon Anderson.

Short Takes: hobbyist CNC milling machine; new HUD LGBT rules; Microsoft slams Google's new privacy policy; Emininent Outlaws: Gay writers who changed America

Just published: Eminent Outlaws: the Gay writers who changed America

The Advocate's Andrew Harmon reports that video recordings of the Proposition 8 trial won't be made public. In a 23-page ruling issued Thursday, a three-judge panel, which has yet to issue its decision on whether to uphold U.S. district judge Vaughn Walker’s 2010 decision striking down Prop. 8, reversed a lower court ruling on the matter.
     Chad Griffin, board president for the American Foundation for Equal Rights: "What is so ironic is that the antimarriage proponents of Prop. 8 have been willing to spend tens of millions of dollars to spew their lies and bigotry, but when it came to a court of law, they have fought tooth and nail to hide from the American public."

Roland, the synthesizer maker, also makes a $1000 hobby CNC milling machine.

Antigay bullying ads to run at Superbowl — but only electronic billboard outside stadium, not on TV

HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan announces new policy prohibiting LGBT discrimination:

GOP Louisiana hooker scandal senator Vitter takes credit for bullying Komen for the Cure foundation into pulling support of Planned Parenthood

Morfield photo via
Jasmine Maharisi

"Nebraska doesn’t have uniform election standards or guidelines other than the state statute, which is very unusual,” said Adam Morfield, of Nebraskans for Civil Reform, which is trying to change those standards. “Most states all around us have these which are produced by the Secretary of State’s office to make sure there’s consistent implementation of the Election Act.”

New print ads from Microsoft slam Google's recent privacy policy changes

GLAAD defends lucrative JC Penney contract of wealthy talk show hostess, real estate flipper and Mario Lopez stripper Ellen DeGeneres with a press release after issuance of OneMillionMoms press release

Since the American Family Association appears to exclusively own the right-wing conspiracy franchise on attempted ideological extortion of gay-friendly Home Depot, OneMillionMoms has gone after JC Penney, demanding that it replace Ellen DeGeneres because she is openly gay.

Now GLAAD is counter-attacking, but before we get to that, a word:

AKSARBENT has a suggestion for GLAAD, which repeatedly spelled "JC Penney" with periods and once with no capital letters at all in its press release, which we had to correct before ripping it off for our blog publicizing it. That suggestion is to be more careful, as AKSARBENT has quite enough problems with spelling, grammar and punctuation (to say nothing of defective corks) without dealing with GLAAD's. Capiche?

Last week, retail giant JC Penney announced a new partnership with America's favorite talk-show host, Ellen DeGeneres.

     “We share the same fundamental values as Ellen,” noted the company's President, Michael Francis. “At JC Penney, we couldn't think of a better partner to help us put the fun back into the retail experience.”

     Now, however, the anti-gay group "One Million Moms.com, a project of the American Family Association" – an organization designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) – has launched a campaign demanding that the retailer fire Ellen simply because she's gay. According to SPLC, "hate groups have beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics."

     “DeGeneres is not a true representation of the type of families that shop at their store,” says the group. (via LGBT news site JoeMyGod)

     But a majority of Americans disagree. Today, more people than ever celebrate the love of every family – gay or straight – and know that no person should be ridiculed, much less fired, simply for being who they are. Even today, Americans can be fired in 29 states for being gay and in 34 states for being transgender.

Support for the gay and lesbian community has been demonstrated in many polls. A 2011 Gallup poll showed that 53% of Americans support marriage equality, and data continues to reflect an American public that wants to ensure that all loving couples are able to marry, regardless of sexual orientation.

Among her many accolades, Ellen received the People's Choice Award for Favorite Daytime TV Host earlier this month. She has also served as a spokesperson for American Express and Cover Girl, among others. Sites including Joe My God, Think Progress, Lez Get Real and Towleroad broke the news and are also calling on readers to voice support for JC Penney.

TAKE ACTION:

The American Family Association – an organization that the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated as a “hate group” -- is spreading anti-gay attitudes and bias by asking its supporters to contact JC Penney and tell the company to fire Ellen simply because of who she is.

     First, add your name to the list of supporters for JC Penney's decision: Add your name now!

     Second, call JC Penney now to remind America's favorite retailer that hate should not be for sale in America's stores.

JC Penney, Customer Service – (972) 431-8200

JC Penney, Corporate Headquarters – (972) 431-1000

     Third, share this action on Twitter:
RT @glaad: Will you #StandUpForEllen? Support @TheEllenShow & thank @jcpenney for making the right choice http://glaad.org/ellen #LGBT

Has the National Organization for Marriage Chief Charlatan, Brian Brown, gone off the rails?

Yesterday, AKARBENT went to NOM's blog to see what kind of fit it might be raising about Washington State's pro-gay marriage Senate vote and found a shrill, red "TAKE ACTION NOW" button above the following.

Last April, the Navy issued new “sensitivity training” guidelines that required Navy chaplains to perform same-sex marriages. Thanks to leadership from Congressmen Tim Huelskamp and Todd Akin, the Navy backed down and rescinded the guidelines.

Our assumption, in respect of Brian Brown, is that if he doesn't link to something credible, then he's lying. There was no link supporting his latest bizarre accusation.

Later, at Box Turtle Bulletin, Rob Tisinai busted Brown with this:

Here’s what those (now-rescinded) guidelines said:

Regarding chaplain participation, consistent with the tenets of his or her religious organization, a chaplain may officiate a same-sex, civil marriage: if it is conducted in accordance with the laws of a state which permits same-sex marriage; and if the chaplain is, according to applicable state and local laws, otherwise fully certified to officiate that state’s marriages.

Oddly, NOM's blog still allows comments, (Now there's a death wish!) many of which also ripped NOM's blatant lie. Is Brown just going through the motions these days, waiting for NOM's very expensive Citizen's United lawyers to overturn campaign finance laws in the states in which NOM is challenging them?

If so, it would explain why he apparently doesn't care any more whether anything he says or writes sounds plausible — if he's just waiting for the courts to validate NOM's campaign disclosure disobedience and for the Astroturf puppeteers to turn the money spigots back on after being guaranteed continued anonymity, then why should Brown care about making credible arguments to nonbillionaire losers?

KETV reports a DUI — its own 5 pm anchorman

KETV

Anchor Adrian Whitsett was arrested by Omaha police early Saturday, Jan. 28 and ticketed for one count of driving under the influence and a second count of driving the wrong way on a one-way street. He is now on a leave of abstinence absence.
     The World-Herald said he was driving west on one-way Leavenworth at 15th, about four blocks from home and that the cops say his blood alcohol content was .262 percent (OoohRa!); the legal limit is, of course, .08.
     AKSARBENT rests peacefully, assured that the very station which employed both Carol Schrader and Lee Terry, Sr. would never knowingly tolerate such shocking behavior.

Washington State Senate approves gay marriage 28-21; house approval expected; 4 GOP and 3 Dem senators cross party lines: how they voted; 100 WA companies supported bill

King 5 news lists the 100 companies, including Microsoft, Starbucks, Google and Nike, which supported the bill.
     To challenge the bill, opponents must wait until the governor signs it into law and then must gather almost 121,000 signatures by June 6th.
     Governor Chris Gregoire has already said she will sign the bill.

Name	Party	Hometown	Vote
Brian Hatfield	D	Raymond	Yes
Paull Shin	D	Edmonds	No
Andy Hill	R	Redmond	Yes
Joe Fain	R	Auburn	Yes
Doug Ericksen	R	Ferndale	No
Lisa Brown	D	Spokane	Yes
Maralyn Chase	D	Shoreline	Yes
Steve Conway	D	Tacoma	Yes
Tracey Eide	D	Federal Way	Yes
Karen Fraser	D	Olympia	Yes
David Frockt	D	Seattle	Yes
Nick Harper	D	Everett	Yes
Mary Margaret Haugen	D	Camano Island	Yes
Steve Hobbs	D	Lake Stevens	Yes
Jim Kastama	D	Puyallup	Yes
Karen Keiser	D	Kent	Yes
Derek Kilmer	D	Gig Harbor	Yes
Adam Kline	D	Seattle	Yes
Jeanne Kohl-Welles	D	Seattle	Yes
Rosemary McAuliffe	D	Bothell	Yes
Ed Murray	D	Seattle	Yes
Sharon Nelson	D	Seattle	Yes
Margarita Prentice	D	Renton	Yes
Craig Pridemore	D	Vancouver	Yes
Kevin Ranker	D	Orcas Island	Yes
Debbie Regala	D	Tacoma	Yes
Christine Rolfes	D	Bainbridge Island	Yes
Rodney Tom	D	Bellevue	Yes
Steve Litzow	R	Mercer Island	Yes
Cheryl Pflug	R	Maple Valley	Yes
James Hargrove	D	Hoquiam	No
Tim Sheldon	D	Potlatch	No
Michael Baumgartner	R	Spokane	No
Randi Becker	R	Eatonville	No
Don Benton	R	Vancouver	No
Mike Carrell	R	Lakewood	No
Jerome Delvin	R	Richland	No
Mike Hewitt	R	Walla Walla	No
Janea Holmquist Newbry	R	Moses Lake	No
Jim Honeyford	R	Sunnyside	No
Curtis King	R	Yakima	No
Bob Morton	R	Kettle Falls	No
Mike Padden	R	Spokane Valley	No
Linda Evans Parlette	R	Wenatchee	No
Pam Roach	R	Auburn	No
Mark Schoesler	R	Ritzville	No
Val Stevens	R	Arlington	No
Dan Swecker	R	Rochester	No
Joseph Zarelli	R	Ridgefield	No

CBS's Lara Logan and the short life of Bill, a marine platoon mascot

How not to support the troops

(Via Copyranter)

AKSARBENT doesn't think this letter was from a kid. We think Newt Gingrich made the gun illustration and Rick Santorum rote the message hisself. Some good will come of this, how­ever. After review­ing the picture's comments here, we can absolutely, positively guarantee that the pictured soldier will not have a problem in the world getting laid when he comes home.

UPDATE: AKSARBENT's nurse just pointed out that the dude is wearing a wedding ring. Ooops, er, we meant by his spouse, of course.

NJ Gov. is sorry for his black civil rights / gay marriage analogy, but not for calling Reed Gusciora a numbnuts

He said his mom used the expression.

Christie, a Republican, spoke Tuesday night during TownSquare Media's "Ask the Governor" program on radio station New Jersey 101.5 FM. He apologized to anyone offended by his comment that people in the civil rights struggle of the 1960s would have been happier to have the matter settled by public vote rather than by dying in the streets.
     He was comparing civil rights to the fight for gay marriage.
     But he didn't back down Tuesday from calling Democratic Assemblyman Reed Gusciora "numb nuts" after the lawmaker compared him to former Govs. George Wallace, of Alabama, and Lester Maddox, of Georgia. He says his late mother used the term.

A day in the life of San Francisco (travel advertising)

(Source)

There's a shot of a gay male couple, but it's only visible if you don't blink. San Francisco tourism's advertising agency wouldn't want to scare away any visitors from Selma, Alabama (or Bruning, NE) now would it? Oops, too late. They may already have seen this...

National Organization for Marriage's defiance of Maine campaign disclosure law to be taken to US Supreme Court by Citizens United attorney James Bopp

James Bopp, Jr.

The lawyer who eviscerated McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform legislation by initiating the Citizens United case that has turned U.S. politics into a cesspool of incessant televised character assassination by secretly financed SuperPACS will now help the National Organization for Marriage thumb its nose at Maine's campaign disclosure laws.
     James Bopp, Jr., whose specialty is overturning campaign finance legislation, will attack Maine's by casting gay marriage defenders as a menace to those who would deny or revoke the legality of same sex relationships and as so much a threat that those who fund the opposition must be protected by anonymity.

 "We already know that the homosexual lobby has launched a national campaign of harassment and intimidation against supporters of traditional marriage, so there's a good reason to keep these names confidential," said Indiana lawyer James Bopp Jr., who's representing the NOM.
     Mary Bonauto, an attorney with Boston-based Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, said Bopp's claims are an attempt to divert attention from NOM's failure to follow Maine disclosure rules.
     "Courts have said it's important for voters to know who the donors are for each side since that information may help them decide how to vote. Everyone else abides by the disclosure rules and so can NOM," she said Tuesday in an email statement.
     The ruling by the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston, like its earlier decision, will be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, Bopp said.